Thread by @JMichaelWaller

From his CIA experience, @FredFleitz lays out a checklist of what US officials should get the intelligence community to disclose about 'unmasking' the Trump team in 2016. foxnews.com/opinion/flynn-…

2. @FredFleitz: The "unmasking" issue is about "how the Obama administration weaponized intelligence to undermine and destroy the incoming Trump administration."

"But it also suggests this conspiracy began earlier and was much broader than previously believed."

3. Fleitz's CIA background guides what to look for: "the intelligence community needs to release much more information to get to the bottom of this conspiracy. This should include information on the content of the NSA reports and which officials made unmasking requests of them."

4. Dig: "Intelligence officials ... need to provide a broader list of all unmasking requests made by senior Obama officials during this time period because it is likely that other Trump campaign and transition officials also were targeted," @FredFleitz says.

5. Here's how unmasking works: "Names of US citizens mentioned in US intelligence reports, often NSA communications intercepts, are blacked out (minimized) because, under US law, America’s foreign intelligence services are normally not permitted to spy on U.S. citizens..."

6. "...Although senior US officials are permitted to ask for the identity of a blacked-out name in an intelligence report (an unmasking request)," says @FredFleitz, . . . .

7. "... such requests are unusual and the requestor must have a 'need to know' the identity of the US person to understand the foreign intelligence information or assess its importance," @FredFleitz explains. So documentation exists about who asked about whom.

8. Even so, the knowledge of the unmasked person is highly compartmented, @FredFleitz says: "When the request is approved, the unmasked identity is released only to the person who requested it, not to everyone who might have seen the original version of the report."

9. Unmasking is supposed to be done very rarely. "For example, during my time at the State Department from 2001-2006, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage made about 100 demasking requests. Then-Under Secretary of State John Bolton only made 10," @FredFleitz says.

10. Obama team targeted Flynn after election: "The list released today is of 39 top Obama officials who made 53 requests to unmask LTG Flynn’s name from intelligence reports between election day (Nov. 8, 2016) and Jan. 31, 2017," says @FredFleitz.

11. Careerists deep in the system joined the unmasking operation, @FredFleitz says: "While many of the requesters were Obama political appointees who resigned by Jan. 20, 2017, some were career officers at CIA, the Pentagon and other agencies."

12. Most unmasking requests were BEFORE the time we were told: "The most stunning thing about this list is that the vast majority of these requests were dated between Dec. 14 and 16, which was before Flynn’s Dec. 29 phone call to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak." @FredFleitz

13. Obama team's operations led FBI to pursue @GenFlynn on his first days in the White House: "An NSA intercept of this phone call was the basis of the Jan. 24, 2017, FBI interview with Flynn when two FBI agents used this intercept to entrap Flynn into lying about the call."

14 Comey wanted no witnesses: "FBI Director James Comey broke protocol by not informing White House lawyers that he planned to send FBI agents to meet with Flynn. The FBI agents discouraged Flynn from having a lawyer present and didn’t read him anything like the Miranda warning."

15 Two week gap: "Flynn was targeted for unmasking at least two weeks before the Dec. 29 phone call and the vast majority of these unmasking requests did not include intercepted conversations of Flynn having allegedly inappropriate conversations with Kislyak," @FredFleitz says.

16 "This may indicate Flynn and other Trump transition officials were being targeted for unmasking as part of a fishing expedition to find dirt on them to undermine Trump’s presidency," says Fleitz.

If so, this unmasking was an extremely grave, organized criminal conspiracy.

17 Prime suspects: "there were only seven unmasking requests by seven officials after the Dec. 29 Flynn-Kislyak phone call" - @JoeBiden, DNI Clapper, Obama Chief of Staff Denis McDonough & 4 careerists. One of the 7 committed a crime by leaking the classified docs to the press.

18 What about @SamanthaJPower? She made the most requests to unmask @GenFlynn: 7. Clapper made 3. No one else made more than 2. Why did Power, the US ambassador to the UN, make so many requests? @FredFleitz has a possible answer.

19 Power "reportedly made an astounding 260 demasking requests during her time as UN ambassador. She testified in 2017 that she did NOT request the unmaskings, and that someone else did it, [illegally] using her name."

.@FredFleitz believes her.

20 "I believe Power and assume someone at the NSC, who was not authorized access to demasking information, made these requests in her name. The intelligence community needs to disclose who this person was," @FredFleitz says. An Obama White House criminal is at large.

21 A "cluster" of @GenFlynn demasking requests came from Biden and others between January 7-12, 2017.

@FredFleitz notes that the timing is curious.

On Jan 5, Biden, Comey, Clapper, @JohnBrennan, @AmbassadorRice & Deputy AG Sally Yates met with Obama.

22 In the January 5, 2017 meeting, @FredFleitz says, "Obama appeared to direct these officials to withhold Russia-related intelligence from the incoming Trump administration."

But there's more....

23. On January 6, "President-elect Trump received a misleading and incomplete briefing on the fraudulent Steele Dossier and Russian meddling in the 2016 election by Clapper, Comey, Brennan, and NSA Director Mike Rogers."

Then the unmasking pace quickened.

24. Afterward, 7 top requests came to unmask @GenFlynn from NSA intercepts.

No coincidence: @FredFleitz thinks a "single intelligence official or NSC staff member suggested that these senior officials ask to see this information as part of a larger effort to target Flynn."

25. The hook was Flynn's Dec 29 phone call with the Russian ambassador - a normal protocol for an incoming national security adviser. That would be used to entrap Flynn.

This unmaskings strongly suggest a coordinated Obama team effort to wreck Flynn & undermine @realDonaldTrump.